Journey

by Norty Schwartz

  Seated directly to my left was Army Colonel Ken Getty, the J-3. He’d be calling the shots. As his senior airman on the staff, my job was to offer whatever advice I could, but let there be no mistake about it—these were Ken’s calls. That is, if there were any calls to be made; by the time you got to this point, it was pretty much up to the folks at the 352nd wing—the Pave Low helicopter and tanker teams. They’re the ones who’d be flying halfway across Iraq in hopes that they wouldn’t meet the same fate as Col Dave Eberly, the Fourth TFW director of operations, and Major Tom Griffith, whose F-15E was hit by radar-controlled AAA just as they were about to release their bombs over suspected Scud missile sites.

  The three nights since the F-15 had gone down seemed like an eternity, but there was one thing after another that precluded an immediate rescue effort:

  • We believed that they’d been evading for three days, but there were no confirmed reports that they were still alive. It was a combination of unconfirmed reports that eventually prompted the mission’s green light.

  • The pilots were equipped with the older PRC-90 survival radios—poor range and incredible susceptibility to enemy interception and, even worse, almost magnet-like vulnerability to enemy DF (direction finding), allowing the enemy to use the transmission itself to home in on the downed pilots’ location.

  • Those few unconfirmed reports of contact were not accompanied by bona fide authentications. Without such authentication, who’s to say that they were even really our pilots?

  • There were three conflicting reports of their location, all three were in extremely high-threat areas—and all three were almost right in the midpoint of Iraq, just north of Baghdad, making it up for grabs whether the mission would be best served by our handling it, or having the CENTCOM teams attempt the rescue from the south.

  • For us, the safest route would take us over sovereign Syrian airspace, but despite attempts to secure Syrian approval, none had come through. This is where I was of help in securing MajGen Tony Zinni’s approval to proceed even without Syrian approval. (Ultimately, Syrian approval did come through—once our planes were in the air.)

  • A Bedouin showed up at the American Embassy to report that he had located the pilots, and claimed to have one of their “blood chits” to prove it. (A blood chit is a notice, usually written in multiple languages, carried by military personnel that identifies the force to which the bearer belongs as friendly, and requests that they be rendered every assistance. These notices are often carried by pilots flying over enemy territory to be used in the event the pilot is shot down.) The time delay clarified his refusal to divulge either their location or present the chit—until after the embassy officials bought the man a new truck. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be a fabricated ploy.

  The two Paves took off on their mission, not so much concerned about the Syrian overflight as they were about the conflicting positions and lack of isolated personnel information on the pilots. All they had was their call sign, “Corvette 03.”

  They flew south toward Al-Qaim for two hours at about one hundred feet above the ground, having some difficulty navigating the blacked-out aircraft with the NVGs. They arrived right on time, feeling relieved that a fighter would be just ahead of them to serve as OSC—on-scene commander—to contact and authenticate the survivors so that the Paves could be in and out as quickly as possible. The fighter never showed up. Another was to have provided a diversionary covering air strike, but it was late and short. The Pave’s ROE (rules of engagement) did not allow them to commit to the threat area unless they had established positive communication with the survivors, which had so far not occurred. Still, they remained in the area and attempted to make radio contact on numerous different frequencies. After the third or fourth transmission, they noticed that they were receiving responses, just not the ones they anticipated. Each press of the transmit button would solicit AAA bursts in their direction. The Iraqis were homing in on the signals for targeting purposes. There’s a reason the MH-53s are called “Jolly Green Giants”—they present a significant target. That was their cue to return to base.

  Unfortunately, despite valiant efforts on the part of all those involved, that endeavor was successful only as a learning tool. Lessons were learned, and hopefully miscues would not be repeated in the future. The next day, Iraqi television depicted the two pilots being paraded around by Iraqi soldiers. Captured, they were now prisoners of war. Colonel Eberly was the senior ranking allied POW during the Gulf War. He and Major Griffith were repatriated on March 5, 1991.

  * * *

  In March we returned to Stuttgart, unaware that the wrath of Saddam Hussein would result in a catastrophic refugee crisis that would prompt our return to Turkey just a few weeks later.

  Believing that the war had decimated Saddam’s military, the Iraqi Kurds had revolted against the dictator. Big mistake. After quashing a Muslim revolt in the south, Saddam turned his attention to the north. His troops soon overwhelmed the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters; then, on March 31, 1991 he bombarded the final Kurdish stronghold of Zakho with artillery fire and strafing by helicopter gunships. That night, amid rumors of an imminent chemical attack, the Kurds began a massive exodus in what they believed to be a last-ditch effort to survive. Their only hope was to seek refuge in the harsh mountains that lined the Iraq/Turkey border. Two million people tried to flee, most of them Kurds.

  Led by Army Lt General John Shalikashvili, Operation PROVIDE COMFORT was our humanitarian mission to aid these Kurdish refugees. Air Force Maj Gen James Jamerson was his number two, and BG Potter was brought back on board to lead a joint special operations task force to support the operation. At first known as Joint Task Force Express Care, it was redesignated Joint Task Force Alpha (JTF-A) on April 17. Once again, I had the honor of working closely with Potter. The ground element of the task force was the 1st Battalion, 10th SFG (A) (Special Forces Group), supported by the USAF 39th SOW and the helicopters of the 24th MEU (SOC) Forward.

  Potter’s first order of business was to get up into the mountains to assess the situation. We climbed into an MH-53 and braced ourselves as the Jolly Green lifted off and banked steeply to the southeast, slowly gaining altitude as we headed for ill-conceived camps. In his storied career, General Potter had seen it all—but even he was shocked by the level of devastation. Crammed into forty-three separate “camps” along the frigid mountainside were over 750,000 refugees, dying at the rate of over a thousand each day—from starvation, exposure, and disease. It was classified as a “medical apocalypse,” and all this was occurring in some of the most inaccessible and unforgiving terrain in the world.

  Upon our return, Potter briefed General Jamerson on the dire situation. (It would be another week before Shali would arrive to take over the command.) Jamerson would coordinate with Maj Gen Hobson, our air component commander, on allocation of resources, deconfliction of air activity, and use of common assets, along with the other component commanders, to begin the enormous humanitarian endeavor.

  Typical of General Jamerson’s “can-do” attitude, his only question to Potter was “How can I help you?”

  “Sir, I came here with [commanding Colonel] Bill Tangney and the 1st Battalion/10th Special Forces Group, but as good as that battalion is, after what I saw out there today we’re going to need the entire 10th Group [two additional battalions]. Do I have your authorization to bring them in?”

  “Absolutely,” replied the two-star commander.

  The additional battalions began to arrive by the end of the week. Military experts agree that this single decision saved tens of thousands of lives.

  The talent associated with Provide Comfort is not sufficiently appreciated. Maj Gen Jim Jamerson (USAF) was General Shalikashvili’s number two, and BGen Tony Zinni (USMC) would go on to become Commander in Chief (CINC) of CENTCOM. Both stand at Incirlik Air Base, Adana, Turkey. Personal collection of MajGen Tony Zinni

  Within a few days the humanitarian relief airdrops began. On April 8, six C
-130s took off from Incirlik and delivered twenty-seven tons of food (MREs) and supplies to try to sustain these concentrations of displaced Kurds.

  I was with Potter when that first flight of 130s made the drops. As the pallets drifted to the ground beneath the green G-12 canopies, I felt a sense of great relief. General Potter, however, appeared disturbed. He gazed at the airdrop, then turned to me, as if some solution just came to him.

  “Norty, go find me a place to do wholesale and retail in Turkey.”

  “Say again, sir. That one flew right over my head,” I told him.

  “I want you to find a place that I can take humanitarian supplies, store them, then distribute them efficiently. I’m talking about a big place.” He looked back at the throngs of refugees, now clawing over one another to grab whatever provisions they could scrounge. “Airdrop’s just not going to cut it here.”

  Back at Incirlik, I pulled out a map and surveyed potential locations. I needed to find a place that was on flat land and close to the Turkey–Iraq border. It had to be large enough to support helicopter operations, and it had to have sufficient infrastructure that we could put together an efficient distribution operation—trucks for delivering the wholesale supplies, which we would repackage and take into the mountains to resupply and sustain the refugee concentrations.

  We found a nice, modern Hajj location slightly south of Silopi, a small, quiet farming village in Turkey’s Hakkari Province. Located only about eight miles northwest of the Habur Turkey–Iraq border crossing, the location seemed ideal. Two teammates and I went down to scope it out.

  In the middle of our survey, an older, official-looking Turkish gentleman arrived and subsequently introduced himself as the governor of the province. I hoped that his presence might actually streamline our endeavors to secure the approvals we’d need to take over the facility. I explained what we had in mind, but he was not interested in our turning that place into a military facility.

  “It’s impossible,” he kept repeating.

  After almost an hour of our attempted “negotiation,” it was obvious that this guy was not going to relent. But do not worry, he assured me—he had an even better place in mind.

  We followed him on a short ride to what turned out to be an old Turkish tank battalion headquarters several miles north of our original site. The governor pulled to a stop beside the old headquarters building. Stepping out from his car, he signaled for us to do the same, all the while beaming with pride as if he’d just taken me to the Taj Mahal. Either this guy was the P. T. Barnum of Sirnak Province or he was flat-out blind, but this place was an armpit. Old and in complete disrepair, it was a far cry from what we had hoped to present to General Potter. But time was of the essence and it was ours for the taking, so we said fine.

  A few days later, a convoy of vehicles and equipment departed Incirlik for Silopi. They arrived around noon on April 15. More than two hundred airmen from the 564th Civil Engineer Squadron (Ramstein, Germany) and the Thirty-Sixth Civil Engineer Squadron (Bitburg, Germany) began construction. They turned that battalion headquarters into a huge, modern, Amazon-like warehouse. There were tent cities and there were helicopter landing pads. They even dug a four-hundred-foot well to enrich the water supply.

  What started as an old, decrepit former Turkish Army tank base was transformed into the core platform for the relief effort. Within weeks the base held more than three thousand military and civilian workers. Over six hundred tons of supplies were transferred at Silopi each day. The sprawling base soon extended several miles along both sides of the road.

  I will never forget the look on Potter’s face the first time he saw it. It was a great tribute to his vision and to the can-do attitude of the SOF people that were there. Personally, I can’t overemphasize the sense of satisfaction I felt to have played even such a small role in a pursuit that saved thousands of lives.

  The talent that was associated with the PROVIDE COMFORT mission was unbelievable, and it’s not something that’s sufficiently appreciated. There were at least a half dozen officers across all the service branches who grew up out of PROVIDE COMFORT and went on to become four-stars. That’s a rather staggering statistic. Shalikashvili was the three-star who followed Colin Powell as chairman. Tony Zinni was the one-star deputy who became commander in chief (CINC) of CENTCOM. John Abizaid was the battalion commander of the 3rd Battalion, 325th Airborne, and he also went on to lead CENTCOM, following Tommy Franks. Col Jim Jones was the commanding officer of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU), and he became SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe). Finally, Potter’s eager young J-5 would eventually become USAF Chief of Staff.

  From April to June 1991, seventeen thousand tons of supplies were delivered to the camps. What had been mass chaos was structured and finely tuned.

  Honored to be pinned to colonel in the middle of the Gulf War by two venerated generals: Maj Gen Jim Jamerson and BG Dick Potter. Incirlik AFB, Turkey. February 1991.

  Schwartz personal collection

  My concentration in special operations was serving me well, taking me back to Hurlburt, where I was assigned deputy commander for operations. But first, after having been away for so long, it was time to surprise Suzie and celebrate my return by pampering her for a few days at the Ritz.

  * * *

  Suzie: Excuse me, “Mr. Revise History doesn’t know the meaning of the word romance.” Who is it that was working at the Reston Hyatt and was able to get us a special rate at the Ritz?

  Norty: Suzie is absolutely correct. By this point she had developed an impressive slate of accomplishments in the food and beverage division of the Hyatt, and was highly regarded by her boss and peers, so much so that her boss had made the offer to contact some friends at the Ritz to get us that special rate. I believe the reason my memory temporarily faltered on that was because it was such a special time, I would have gladly paid full retail rack rate for the room.

  Suzie: Impressive save.

  Norty: Thank you, I thought so. To continue, it’s about a fourteen-hour drive from Washington to Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and it served as a wonderful opportunity for the two of us to catch up. We had just passed through the toll booth on the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike (the tolls would not be eliminated until the following year, 1992) when I shared my enthusiasm about the new assignment. “My expanded level of responsibility now includes all the flying squadrons—fixed-wing, helicopters, you name it. Obviously I’ll still be working closely with the 8th, but now we’re adding the 9th, 15th, 16th, 20th, and 55th squadrons to the mix.” Suzie listened patiently, but I could tell there was something else on her mind.

  Unlike so many of those cross-country trips where it seemed like we’d been driving forever, before I knew it we were crossing the Florida state line.

  “We’re on the home stretch now,” I said, glancing out the window at the lush Florida oaks that I’d flown over so many times. Suddenly Suzie started sobbing. Being somewhat of a quick study, by this point in my life I’d gained at least a modicum of understanding of what might be going through a female’s thoughts at times like these—at least this female.

  “You’re not staying, are you?” I asked, although it was really more of a statement than a question.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you; I do,” she said between the sniffles. “I’ve just worked so hard to get to where I’m at, and if I move right now I’d be leaving them in a horrible bind. That’s not fair to anybody. I will be coming, just give me a few months to wrap things up.”

  With all the focus I’d been giving to my career, it was certainly a reasonable request. She stayed for a few days, then caught a flight back home. She would have the opportunity to manage the transition from her career as I embarked on my new adventure at the base.

  * * *

  In the aftermath of DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM, the demands were high and Hurlburt was growing. Simple tasks we’d taken for granted for so long (like finding a parking space) were not so simple anym
ore. Congress was well aware of the force multiplier Special Ops brought to the table, and we were rewarded with newer and more resources. On June 29, 1991, about a month before my arrival, the first MC-130H Combat Talon II airplane was delivered to Hurlburt. When I arrived in August, it was midway through intensive acceptance testing—four months in which we tried to get any deficits to appear. Better to recognize them at that point—and fix them—than to have some glitch in the new automated control system present an erroneous reading when we were flying blacked-out one hundred feet over the ocean on a real-world mission.

  The new Combat Talon IIs had entirely NVG-compatible cockpits and cargo compartments, eliminating the need to reduce the ambient light level and tape illuminated cockpit instruments. Each crew station had two video displays with keyboards that were used to control radios and navigation systems. The vast improvements from its predecessor allowed us to more efficiently penetrate hostile airspace with low visibility, at night and at very low altitudes; they also enhanced our capability to successfully infiltrate into sometimes politically denied, sensitive areas to resupply and/or exfiltrate special operations forces and equipment, while detecting and avoiding both radar and infrared- or radar-guided antiaircraft threats.

  On October 17, 1991, we came to the conclusion that everything was in order and official flight operations were ready to begin. The milestone was celebrated by a grand acceptance ceremony thrown by AFSOC.

  * * *

  I’m a big believer in doing everything in my power to get to know my team, and that includes the crews that fly the aircraft under my command. They are the ones who are closer to our partners (Special Forces, Army Rangers, Navy SEALS, etc.) than anybody else in our organization. I also wanted to fully understand the demands of the aircraft and the demands placed on the kids who operated them. General O’Malley’s wise counsel came to mind: You can’t expect to lead your people if you don’t thoroughly understand their platforms. The only way to do that is to fly with them in the seat. It’s the reason I learned to pilot all the aircraft, both fixed-wing and rotary (helicopters). When I became the Wing Director of Operations at Hurlburt, I flew the gunships and the tankers, and I even learned to fly the helos. Rotary-wing aviation is much different than large aircraft operations. Like the fighter business, it’s a more three-dimensional sort of flying game.